The Isle
of SkyeAn account from the publication
"Good Words" 1875 Edition

IT is difficult for a man
to speak about his mother or the lady of his love, without either saying
less than he feels, or saying more than other people can sympathize with.
If, therefore, I should seem to speak with over-fondness of the Isle of
Skye, let the excuse be that I was born there. The great blue mass of the
Coolin, [It has become the fashion to call these the Cuchullin Hills, and
it is hardly worth while to insist that it is a mistake, the name being a
good and sonorous one if rightly pronounced. But the native name is The
Coolin, without any addition, like The Caucasus, The Balkan, The Himalaya.
The Gaelic name is Cuilfhionn, pronounced Coolyun, which has the advantage
of being easier to say than Cuchuilin, there being some people that cannot
sound the ch, who therefore inevitably call these mountains either
Cuckoolin or Cutchullin.] with profile as clean cut and memorable as a
historical face, was photographed in my mind before the days of Daguerre
and Talbot, and the picture grows not dimmer but more distinct every year.
Still more difficult is it to forget the kindly human souls, whose
memories are associated with every green spot on which those great hills
look down.

Some people are naturally
not fond of islands, regarding them more or less as prisons, places not
easy to get at, and sometimes still more difficult to get out of. Thus a
certain metaphysical friend of mine maintained, when we were in Skye, the
strange proposition that the sea is not so fine a horizon, nor so
illimitable in suggestion, as dry land! Even from a metaphysical point of
view, that seems to me absurd. But it so happens that my friend was born
and bred far out of sight of the boundless sea, while to me it happened to
be born so near it that I feel a natural brotherhood with sea-gulls and
Solan geese, and a liking for everything belonging to the sea, with the
exception of devil-fish, sharks, &c. For an island, simply as such, I
confess to as great a partiality as Sancho had. I never saw one yet,
however small, that was quite destitute of merit. There is always
something of originality about an island, were it the most barren rock man
ever set his foot on. It stands by itself, is self-contained, has its own
distinct character and boundaries, not made by man, or changeable by him.
What would Great Britain be if it were tacked on to the rest of Europe? It
would be Great Britain no longer. Is not Iceland, in spite of its horrible
wildness and cold, one of the most interesting bits of land in the world?
And Ithaca? And Patmos? And Iona? And Juan Fernandez? And St. Helena? Did
not Shakespeare, when he wished to invent a region for pure Imagination to
work in, put Prospero on an island ? Nothing but an island would suit for
that atmosphere of the supernatural which is the setting of the Tempest,
and makes it, of all his creations, the most perfectly ideal. The scenery
of the Midsummer Night's Dream is not so harmonious: you realise, in the
midst of all the fairies, that it is but a dream. But Caliban and Ariel
are beings of daylight, the natural inhabitants of that remote and
isolated place.

Commend me, therefore, to
an island; and of all islands, with the single exception of the "adjacent
island" of Great Britain, commend me to the Isle of Skye! It's all very
well for Professor Blackie to sing of Mull as

"The fairest isle that
spreads
Its green folds to the sun in Celtic seas;"

and let Mull be thankful
that she has got so eloquent a lover to sing her praises. It was well to
do so, considering that such a poet as the Ettrick Shepherd was so far
left to himself as to speak somewhere of

"The rude and shapless hills
of Mull."

Set him up, indeed! Not to
mention the majestic Ben More, there is no hill to be seen from Mount
Benger equal in beauty of form or colour to Ben Talla; and, profane as it
may seem, I would say that, but for association, St. Mary's Loch itself is
nothing to Loch Baa! If any doubt that, let them go and see it.

But though there is much to
be said for Mull, much beauty and grandeur within its "green folds," which
few strangers ever come to look at, beyond the passing view they get
between Oban and Ardnamurchan, it won't do to put the crown on her head
among all the Western Isles. That were privy conspiracy and schism, not to
say flat treason and burglary, against the true Queen of the Isles! I have
seen them nearly all, and would give them all their due. Arran I would
call, on the whole, the most delightful, more enjoyable even than Skye,
partly because smaller, though scarcely less wild, but chiefly because of
the better condition of its inhabitants. Islay is, in a sense, the fairest
of them all, the most rich and fertile, but for that very reason a little
prosaic. Mull is more green and woody than the Isle of Mist, but her form
and features, though good, are less noble and expressive. Jura is queenly
in her stately and symmetrical grace, but she lacks variety. Tiree, though
flat as a table, has many charms. Still more has Barray, though for the
most part rough and rocky. So have North and South Uist, with their
unnumbered lakes; and Harris, likest to Skye in mountain grandeur; and the
great and boggy Lewis, with its glorious salmon streams, and its wild
rocks, beaten by the wave that comes unbroken from Labrador. Colonsay and
Oronsay are as two bright emeralds, set side by side in the blue sea. Very
beautiful are Eigg and Cannay, and grand is Rum. The very names of Ulva
and Go-metra are suggestive of wild green solitary beauty. Staffa and
Iona, smallest of all, appeal most to the universal sense of wonder and
reverence; the one as a prodigy of nature, the other as hallowed ground,
ennobled by the dust of saints and mighty men of yore.

But nowhere among these
western isles,

"That like to rich and
various gems inlay
The unadorned bosom of the deep,"

is there to be found such a
combination of grandeur and picturesque originality, if one may use the
phrase, as in the Isle of Skye. Whichever of them be entitled to be called
the fairest, it is past doubt that this island has long since been
enthroned as the grandest of them all, the visible Queen, whose place and
title it would be mere wantonness of disaffection or caprice in any one to
dispute. There is no need for a plebiscite to settle that point. But if
authority be required, there is one whose voice is worth a hundred
thousand common ones, of whose voice, in fact, the common ones are but
echoes:—

"Stranger! if e'er thine
ardent step hath traced
The northern realms of ancient Caledon,
"Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath placed,
By lake and cataract, her lonely throne,
Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known,
Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high,
Listing where from the cliffs the torrents thrown
Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry,
And with the sounding lake, and with the moaning sky.

"Yes! 'twas sublime but
sad. The loneliness
Loaded thy heart, the desert tired thine eye!
And strange and awful fears began to press
Thy bosom with a stern solemnity.
Then hast thou wished some woodman's cottage nigh,
Something that showed of life, though low and mean;
Glad sight, its curling wreath of smoke to spy,
Glad sound, its cocks' blithe carol would have been,
Or children whooping wild beneath the willows green.

"Such are the scenes where
savage grandeur wakes
An awful thrill that softens into sighs.
Such feelings rouse them by dim Rannoch's lakes,
In dark Glencoe such gloomy raptures rise;
Or farther, where beneath the northern skies,
Chides wild Loch Eribol his caverns hoar—
But, be the minstrel judge, they yield the prize
Of desert dignity to that dread shore,
That sees grim Coolin rise, and hears Coriskin roar."

I like to quote these
verses (notwithstanding their being in all the guide-books), though I
can't quite sympathize with their ruling sentiment. That sense of
loneliness and sadness which oppressed the genial soul of the minstrel,
accustomed to Lowland greenery, and delighting in the haunts and the
converse of men, is not natural to the born mountaineer, to whom the
silence of the corrie is not the less delightful that it is unbroken by
any sound of human voice. But these verses would prove, if he had written
nothing else, how great a poet Sir Walter was, which some shallow people
still are found to call in question, because, forsooth, he had none of the
fiery passion of Byron, or the philosophical depth of Wordsworth, or the
perfect music of Campbell, &c. I believe that Sir Walter will live, as a
poet, as long as any of them; and the older the world gets the more
perhaps will he be relished, for his manly and careless simplicity, his
unaffected warmth, his unerring eye for the picturesque, his unerring
touch of the chords that find response in the patriotic heart.

When I knew Skye first, the
tourist was among its rarer Fauna. It was known to exist, and the fact
that Dr. Johnson and Sir Walter had taken the trouble of visiting it was
in its favour. But few strangers, except yachtsmen, bagmen, and a stray
geologist now and then, ever invaded it. The facilities for getting to it
were limited, and such a phenomenon as a male waiter in a white neckcloth
was as unknown to the humble inns of the period (they were not called
hotels then) as an electric telegraph or a needle-gun. Things are
different now. There can be no doubt, whether one likes the fact or not,
that Skye actually has become fashionable. The visit of a live Empress,
though a discrowned one, would be sufficient for that, apart from anything
that is to be seen there, apart from all reminiscences of King Hakon,
Prince Charlie, Dr. Johnson, and Sir Walter Scott. It may be called, in
fact, a distingue place to go to, which to the true British tourist is a
great matter. Prince Arthur has been there, too, and left his clear pretty
autograph in the visitors' book at Sligachan. If our dear Queen would only
visit the island—the rumoured possibility of which the autumn before last
set the hearts of the inhabitants in a loyal flutter, then the fortune of
Skye, or at least of the hotel-keepers of Skye, might be said to be made.

Personally, I have no wish
to increase the number of visitors, and though the Spectator says, "Skye
ought to be the Oberland of Scotland," I am thankful to think that there
is not the remotest chance of a railway ever being constructed to the top
of Scur-nan-Gillean, or even through Glen Sligachan. But if people will
come, by all means let them do so, and let us, who can, give them all the
advice and assistance in our power On that broad Christian principle, I
think it but fair to let the public know that they had better not come all
together in the month of August. Those of them who have any partiality for
sleeping in beds, rather than on tables and sofas, and who like the
amenity of a basin-stand to themselves in the morning, cannot be certain
in that month of these modest luxuries, and would do well, if they can, to
come in June or July—June, by all means, if possible. Nor let them imagine
that they are ill-used martyrs, and that the climate of Skye is the most
detestable in creation, [A correspondent of the Glasgow Mail, whose
sensational outcry found an echo in the London papers, last year described
Skye thus:—"This island is gradually becoming an intolerable place for
human beings to live in. Owing to the frightfully gloomy and stormy
weather that prevails continually during summer and winter, spring and
autumn, the very wealthiest can have no earthly pleasure in living in
Skye." There is nothing like drawing the bow well and strongly, when one's
hand is in ! Not long after that was written, it was reported from Skye,
that the island was suffering from prolonged drought. 1 hope the
unfortunate writer of the above—presumably "a forlorn and shipwrecked
brother" of the Sassenach race—has made himself the pioneer of that great
army of emigrants from Skye of which he gave announcement, but which
nobody else there seems to have heard of.] if they come there for three
days, and the heavens refuse, even for such interesting creatures as them,
to show one morsel of blue, or anything but an "even down-pour" of rain.
Let them understand, nevertheless, that it does not always rain in Skye,
and that if they can't afford to wait for a fair blink, the rnore's the
pity for themselves. If they are in a hurry, Skye and its clouds (and its
inhabitants) are in none, and the Coolin Hills will unveil their majestic
heads in due time, and no sooner. To see them do so is worth a week's
waiting—to see the black peaks start out like living creatures, high above
the clouds, which wildly career up the cleft ridges, now hiding and now
revealing their awful faces, or calmly rising, like the spires and towers
of a celestial city, out of a snowy sea of mist, which anon breaks into
soft downy wreaths, white and graceful as the sea-bird's wing, that go
gliding with a ghostlike ease down the walls of precipice into the dark
corries below, and then as softly float up again to the battlements above,
leaving bare the mountain side, where from a hundred chasms and ravines
the torrents come roaring down the glens, streaking their slopes as with
threads of silver. All this is not to be seen every day or everywhere, and
whoever does not think it worth enduring a few days' rain to see it had
certainly better go elsewhere than to Skye for enjoyment. But when the sun
shines in Skye, and I can testify, on the word of a true man, that it does
shine there sometimes, even for weeks, no words can describe the heavenly
sweetness of its smile. The reader perhaps smiles at this, naturally. But
let any one consider the difference between the shining of the sun in the
Sahara, and the shining of the same sun in Glen Sligachan, and the thing
will not seem absurd. The place he shines on, and the atmosphere through
which he shines, make all the difference ; with some allowance also, of
course, for the difference in the eyes of those that look. Now the scenery
of Skye is generally very grand, and the air is very pure and mild. I have
seen on a miserable sloppy morning in November, after a night of
unmitigated wind and rain, the sun break forth there with the softest of
smiles, the light as it were sleeping on the green silent braes, and out
on the glassy surface of the sea, leagues and leagues away, to the far
horizon, bordered with the dim blue outlines of distant mountains and
isles. In such a scene there is a strange charm, and the rudest bothie
that sends up its wreathing smoke in the still morning air appeals to the
heart and imagination with an unspeakable pathos, deepened by the contrast
between the serene magnificence of nature, and the hard and joyless life
of her human offspring. Talking of scenery, it is now a trite observation,
that the taste for romantic scenery is quite modern. Scott and Wordsworth
have had much to do with its development. Nor can it be doubted that it is
now rather overdone, and is getting, like all good things, mixed with
cant. It is quite amusing to find in the old books of travel, not only a
total absence of enthusiasm about the scenery which we now go into
raptures about, but even occasional expressions of horror at the wildness
and bareness of the hills. Captain Birt (1746) expresses this feeling more
than once very decidedly. Pennant (1774), who was an observant man,
accustomed to fine scenery, and not without taste, does not bestow a
single word of admiration on the scenery of Skye, except in describing the
view from the top of Beinn-na-Caillich, where he says, "the serrated tops
of Blaven affect with astonishment, and beyond them the clustered tops of
Quillin" &c. He goes on to say, "The view to the north-east and south-west
is not less amusing," a very amusing phrase, characteristic of the period.

Neither Johnson nor Boswell
has anything to say on the same subject, except in the way of contrasting
the outer roughness and desolation with the comfort and elegance which
they found within doors. In the very heart of the north-western Highlands,
which, at the time of their visit in August, must have been in the full
glory of heather, Johnson observes of the mountains, "They exhibit very
little variety, being almost wholly covered with dark heath, and even that
seems to be checked in its growth. What is not heath is nakedness, a
little diversified by now and then a stream rushing down the steep. An eye
accustomed to flowery pastures and waving harvests is astonished and
repelled by this wide extent of hopeless sterility." This feeling is to
some extent shown even by Sir Walter Scott, as already noticed. "Sublime
but sad," is his phrase, and to him there would undoubtedly be no sense of
exhilaration in the solitude of Coiruisg or Glen Sligachan. In like manner
Alexander Smith, with all his love of Skye, very plainly had no intense
enjoyment in that wild scenery. The grandeur of Glen Sligachan impressed
him with more awe than delight, and the places in Skye which he liked best
were, I rather think, the most green, cultivated, and Lowland in
character. Custom and association have a great influence in determining
one's taste in these things; and it is unreasonable to expect that all
men, even men of highly poetic nature, should take pleasure in scenery
devoid of those softer charms to which they have been accustomed.

But it is a mistake to
suppose, as is sometimes done, that the beauties of the Highlands are not
appreciated by the natives, and that with them, too, the taste for scenery
is an affair of cultivation. The finest poems of Duncan MacIntyre, in his
way as true a genius as Burns, and purer, are descriptive. A long and
beautiful poem of his is devoted to a single mountain (Ben Dorain),
another to one corrie (Coire-Cheathaich), and he paints every feature of
them with the hand of a master. And yet this man was but a gamekeeper,
destitute of learning, ignorant, I believe, of all the three R's, and with
less knowledge of English probably than the majority of Highland
street-porters. For him the love of nature and of scenery was as little
the product of fashion and teaching, as was his delight in the warbling of
birds and the belling of red deer.

It is not desirable to
encourage any one to visit Skye, who has not a natural and true relish for
wild scenery. But it is well in this educational age to contribute what we
can to the diffusion of knowledge and the extinction of ignorance. People
from the south are apt to have exaggerated ideas of the difficulty of
getting to Skye. In England especially, a plentiful lack of knowledge on
the subject of geography is sometimes found even among persons supposed to
be educated, just as in France we find brilliant men of letters
disdainfully careless about such trifles as the proper names and titles of
British dignitaries —Sir Peel, Sir Palmerston, &c. Such persons will be
found to have but a hazy conception of the difference between the Hebrides
and the Orkney and Shetland Isles; and as they may be supposed never to
look at a map except when they become tourists, it is most natural that
they should imagine Skye to be the veritable Ultima Thule, a desolate and
inaccessible region,

"Placed far amid the
melancholy main,"

where all the people wear
tartan and kilts, and see second sights, and never see the Daily
Telegraph. Let such persons know, then, that there is no more difficulty
in getting to Skye from London than in going to Gravesend. The distance is
rather greater, that is all; the danger is perhaps less. Let them also be
aware that if they dislike the sea, they can still get to Skye with the
merest minimum of nautical effort—the ferry between the island and the
mainland being passable in about ten minutes. It may also be a comfort to
them to know, that the island is quite free from banditti (armed ones, at
least); that there are only two policemen to about 20,000 of a population;
that the inhabitants are, with the exception of a dozen or two, all
Protestants; that there is, or used to be, an abundance of churches and
schools (the latter, strange and sad to say, suffering in the meantime
from the Education Act, or its administrators); that the telegraph wires
go as far as Dunvegan; that there used to be in summer a daily post, which
our poor nation, it seems, cannot now afford; that several copies of the
Times come regularly; that there are shops where paper and ink can be got
for writing letters to that great organ; that beef can be got, perhaps not
daily; also cigars, creditable to the British manufacturer; that there is
abundance of bitter beer, and a limited supply of Bristol bird's-eye ; and
that, in some places, the weary and luxurious traveller can even refresh
exhausted nature with draughts of Moet and Chandon. Let no one therefore
imagine that going to Skye is in the least a formidable undertaking, as it
was in Dr. Johnson's time. But let them not imagine that they will find
everything exactly to their mind on getting there, and let them not abuse
the place or the people because of such short-coming. Rome was not made in
a day; still less was Skye. Above all, if they have not philosophy enough
to stand a few days' rain, let them, I repeat, go elsewhere for
enjoyment—Aden, for instance, or Timbuctoo.

I have spoken of June as a
desirable time to visit Skye. One great reason for this is the length of
the days : there is scarcely any darkness at that time. I have read a
newspaper there in June as late as midnight, with no light but that of the
sky. Apart from the pleasure of witnessing the prolonged effects of sunset
and twilight in that season, and doing so with comfort in the open air,
the length of the day is an immense advantage for the purpose of taking
long excursions; and all the best things in Skye require a long day to get
at them and enjoy them. Another eminent recommendation of this month, even
to the most hardy and romantic traveller, is that you have a much better
chance than later in the season of getting a bed. There are few things
more disheartening, not to say exasperating, than to arrive at a
comfortable hostelry late in the evening, after a heavy day's work, and be
told that you cannot possibly be accommodated, but that you can have a
"machine" to take you on to another place ten miles off, where you may,
perhaps, get a bed ! And you, the hungry and weary soul, who receive this
insufferable information, see, with feelings not to be described, a lot of
careless comfortable fellows lounging about in slippers, their beds
secure, enjoying the balmy evening air, smoking their delicious weeds, and
making their plans for the morrow, while perhaps, to add to the attraction
of the scene and your exasperation, you get a glimpse, on a neighbouring
knoll, of the fair creature with whom you had such a pleasant conversation
the other day on the deck of the Clansman. In such circumstances the best
reply to a discouraging intimation from the host is simply to say that you
don't mean to budge; and if you combine firmness with good humour, and are
not too proud, there is no fear but something can be done for you.

After these remarks, it is
perhaps unnecessary to say that the hotel accommodation in Skye, though
good so far as it goes, is not yet adequate to supply with comfort the
wants of the tourists who crowd there in autumn. It may even be said that
no one who has not the good fortune to be independent of inns can at
present with full enjoyment, or without great fatigue, see all that is
worth seeing in the island. For that purpose, you must either have command
of a yacht, or have friends in the island. If you have both, and go in the
height of summer, you can see Skye to perfection, and only then. The
reason is that the distances between the hotels and the chief places to be
seen are considerable, and that as regards the great point of attraction,
Coiruisg, there is no getting at it, for anybody without fatigue, unless
from the sea. The nearest inn is at Sligachan, and the next to that is at
Broadford; from the one you can't get to Coiruisg under three hours, and
from the other in from three to four at the shortest.

I consider Sligachan the
right central point in Skye for the " bona fide traveller," i.e. the
person who desires to get as near the mountains as possible, and to make
their acquaintance. That there is no larger hotel there would be a wonder
anywhere else than in Skye. Whether or not "a million might be spent in
Skye, and spent to pay," as the Spectator says, there can be no doubt that
at any similar point of vantage in Switzerland there would probably be
from three to six large hotels. The modest hostelry at Sligachan has, in
ordinary circumstances, about a dozen beds available; but, I believe, that
from thirty to forty people were sometimes put up there during my last
visit. Of course, the remark is obvious, that during winter and spring a
larger house would be useless. But the same remark applies to the hotels
on the Righi, and other extraordinary places in Switzerland. I have no
doubt whatever that a house of one hundred beds at Sligachan would be full
every night in the season, if it were as well conducted as the present
house is. I say this much for Sligachan, both because I regard it as the
proper centre for the lover of mountains, and also because it seems at
present not to be getting quite fair play. The tourists generally rush to
Portree, drive from thence to Sligachan for Coiruisg, and drive back again
as fast as they can. Few remain a night, or more than a night, from
choice. They have generally an immense desire to be at the nearest
convenient point for escaping out of the island, for getting their letters
and papers, for buying stamps and envelopes. Even the small pavements of
Portree, and the fact that it has pretensions to be called a town, a place
with churches, banks, hotels, a court-house, a jail, and at least three
streets, limited possibilities for the display of costume, are clear
points of superiority over the desolate though glorious solitude of
Sligachan.

People going to Skye are
generally in a great hurry: otherwise, if they cared to see all that is
worth seeing, they would begin at Kyleakin, where there is a capital
hotel, which had the honour, two or three years ago, of harbouring, for a
few nights, no less remarkable a visitor than Thomas Carlyle. The view
here of an evening, when the sun sets over the distant Minch, lighting the
hills of Applecross, and the archipelago between it and Skye, with
infinite varieties of colour, is what "Mr. Thomas" would call "a sight
like few." The Kyle (strait) itself, with its speckled rocky shores and
wooded banks, is strangely attractive, and seldom wants the animation and
picturesqueness imparted by passing craft of every size and description.
Through that narrow strait the long ships of the Norsemen were wont to
sweep in days of old, on their way to and from their Sudreyar or South
Isle Kingdom. From the gallant Hakon it undoubtedly derives its name, and
very interesting it is to find the "Cailleach-Stone" mentioned, by the
same Gaelic name which it still bears, in the Norse chronicle of his fatal
expedition in 1263. Near that stone, which is marked by a beacon, is the
anchorage of the Kyle, one of the best of many good harbours on the coasts
of Skye. From Kyle delightful excursions may be made by sea to Balmacara,
Loch Duich, and Glenelg; and by land to several places of great beauty in
the parish of Sleat, including the drive to Lochindaal, from which the
view of the opposite coast is superb, and by Isle Ornsay to Armadale, the
beautiful seat of Lord Macdonald. A few miles from Isle Ornsay are Gillen
and Ord, sunny spots, facing the south, from which Horatio McCulloch and
Alexander Smith took their wives; between them is the picturesque ruin of
Dun Sgathaich, perched on a lonely rock above the waves, full of
traditions of the great Cuchullin, who was nursed in the Isle of Mist; and
near Ord is one of the loveliest little birchen glens in all Scotland, to
see the sun from which, sinking over the long ridge of Blaveinn, bathed in
splendour, is

"A sight to dream of, not
to tell."

But this is getting into
the guide-book vein, so it is time to shut up for the present.

II. Coiruisg.

THERE are many fine corries
in the Coolin, but there is none anywhere like Coiruisg. The place most
comparable to it in Scotland for wildness and solitude is Loch Aan, at the
back of Cairngorm, which has this advantage to the lovers of the
inaccessible, that it is even more difficult to get at than Coiruisg, and
is likely to remain so.

The word "coire" is the
Gaelic for a caldron or kettle. It is properly applied to those hollows
among mountains which are often, but not always, the receptacles of tarns
or lochs, and "the coiruisg" means ' the water - caldron. This very
elementary information seems not superfluous, when we find a man so
accomplished in hill-knowledge as the Ettrick Shepherd speaking, in. his
"Lament of Flora Macdonald," of

"The corrie that sings to
the sea,"

as if a corrie were
synonymous with a burn. Even allowing the metaphorical fitness of
describing a corrie as vocal, it would hardly be correct to say of any
corrie, even in Skye, that it sings to the sea. Query, was the word
"sings" a misprint for "sinks?"

The first time I saw
Coiruisg was in circumstances unusually fortunate. I walked with two
companions, who now sleep afar, from the hospitable house of Dr.
McAllister, Strathaird, also gone. We had scarcely passed what is called
the "bad step," the dangers of which we found to be nothing at all, when,
in the words of "Sir Patrick Spens,"—

"The lift grew dark, and the
wind blew loud,
And gurly grew the sea."

Better still, forth from
the dark canopy that overhung Coiruisg came crashing, peal upon peal, such
a discharge of heaven's artillery as I never heard before, and have never
heard since that day but once. Those who have not been equally favoured,
but who have heard a gun fired at Coiruisg, producing the most unearthly
uproar and reverberation, can imagine what thunder there must be. We took
such refuge as we could find under a rock, and looked and listened to what
sounded to us, being young, and undisturbed by any scientific views, like
the voice of God. Byron's picture of a thunder-storm in the Alps is grand,
but not equal in simple majesty to that of David, which, I remember well,
came there and then to mind:—

"The voice of the Lord is
upon the waters;
The glory of God thundereth:—the Lord is upon many waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful: the voice of the Lord is full of
majesty.
The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars; yea, the Lord breaketh the
cedars of Lebanon,
The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire.
The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness."

Yes, it did shake the
wilderness that day, and "the perpetual hills did bow" before it.

We waited in our bield till
the worst of the storm was over, and then, oh, what a sight was that
seething caldron and its black environment, with the mists rolling down,
and flying up, and winding about, and struggling like persecuted ghosts!
And ever and anon there leaped out of the grey turmoil the black head of
some formidable peak, wildly defiant, and in a moment again it was hidden
by the driving mist. I have seen Coiruisg often since that day, in good
weather and bad, but never again had the luck of being there
"In thunder, lightning, and in rain."

That, of course, is its
grandest aspect, but it is one that strangers, going for the first time,
would hardly pray for. Let them be thankful, rather, if they see it under
a smiling sun; even then they will find it quite sufficiently awful. I
shall describe an excursion there in such circumstances.

It was a perfectly fine day
in August, bright, but not too warm, the air fresh and pellucid, with just
enough of occasional cloud to give life and variety to the sky and
mountain-tops, when (to use the style of G. P. R. James) a gay cavalcade
might have been seen, accompanied by several sturdy pedestrians, starting
in a southerly direction from the remote but well-frequented hostelry of
Sligachan. The party consisted of five ladies and four gentlemen, the
former and one of the latter being mounted on ponies. Shawls did duty for
riding-skirts, and one lady's equipment would have gladdened the heart of
Sir Walter Scott, her skirt being a plaid of her own clan tartan, as well
became the daughter of a chief. This is one of the many uses to which a
plaid can be turned, of which no other garment is susceptible. With the
help of a belt, it can, in a few minutes, be made into a full dress for a
man; it is the best and lightest of wraps by day, and serves for
bed-clothes at night; it can be used as a bag; it will serve as a sail for
a boat; it is valuable as a rope in rock-scrambling; it can be turned into
a curtain, an awning, a carpet, a cushion, a hammock. Its uses, in fact,
are endless, and as a garment it has this superiority over every other,
that "there's room in't for twa!"

The path up Glen Sligachan
is one of the worst in existence, and I think if I were lord of that side
of the glen I should order it to be mended for the benefit of poor
travellers. It would cost something, but not very much, and it might be
done by degrees—say, even half a mile per annum. There are plenty hands at
Sconser, for which such occupation would be a blessing. After heavy rain
this track is little more than a combination of bog and burn channel, and
if you have to tramp it during a flood you must wade in some places up to
the knees. This bright August day it was almost tolerable, and the
pleasant company reconciled one to the occasional splash that came from
the heels of the cautious, slow-going ponies. As we got up the glen the
fine pyramidal mass of Marscowe towered in front, half-way between us and
the dark battlements of Blaveinn, of which part appears beyond. The sun is
in our face, high in heaven, and fills the glen with glory, making the
rock crystals up the sides of Scur-nan-Gillean glisten like water, and the
pools in the marshes like sheets of silver. Marscowe is half in shadow,
and its green sides contrast delightfully with the dry and scarred slopes
of the Red Hills on the left. As we go on, the outlines of
Scur-nan-Gillean and his attendant peaks change strangely, and presently
his three graduated spires, seen from Sligachan as one, come into view,
with their deep clefts between. As we clear Marscowe, there opens to us on
the right the half-hidden grandeur of Harta-Corrie, with its girdling wall
of rock, its towers and embrasures, clearly marked against the sky-line. A
little further on we come on Loch-nan-Aan ("Loch of the Fords"), a shallow
and uninteresting sheet of water, but now, in its best aspect, laughing
brightly to the sun, and forming quite a beautiful foreground to the view,
as we look back towards Scur-nan-Gillean. In front Blaveinn upheaves his
huge mass of precipice, crowned with his double head and long black ridge.
His aspect from here is not unlike the Eiger, as one looks up from
Grindelwald. The scale is much reduced, but one doesn't think of that
here, nor miss even the pine-trees and the snow. At his base glitters the
blue and beautiful Loch-na-Creathaich (pronounced konix), the opposite
side of which is overhung by a steep ridge with shelving rocks. At one
time this place must have been wooded, as the name of the loch ("Loch of
the Brushwood") indicates. Nothing is wanted but a few birches and firs to
make the scene one of the finest of pictures. It is surprising that no
artist has attempted it.

The path goes by the margin
of this bonnie loch, in which is good store of trouts not less bonnie; and
presently we come, in comparatively level ground, to "The Prince's Well,"
one of the numerous vestiges of poor Prince Charlie's wanderings. That he
came through Glen Sligachan on his way from Raasay to Strathaird is pretty
certain. It was the nearest way, and there was probably at that time some
friendly Mackinnon population inhabiting this part of the glen. Whether
the prince drank of it or not, the well is of the highest quality, and
quite worthy to be patronised by the Royal Family.

A mile or two more brought
us to Camu-sunary (or Casimunary, as I heard a tourist call it)
farm-house, the only dwelling [There is one other, which I had nearly
forgot, a shepherd's bothie, half way up the side of Marscowe. A friend
and I encountered one evening the mistress of that house returning home
with a great bundle of blankets on her back. We never suspected her of
being a matron, as she had the look of a girl of eighteen. But on inquiry
she told us that she had a companion who inhabited with her that bothie up
the brae, "another shepherd," as she quaintly termed him, and this was her
husband.] between Sligachan and Strathaird, a distance of some twelve
miles. Here, undoubtedly, is the place where, were it Switzerland, would
be a "Grand Hotel de Blaveinn," a "Grand Hotel des Cuchullins," and
probably, also, a "Grand Hotel et Pension de Camusunary." "Why should
there not be one there?" it may well be asked, and echo from Blaveinn
answers, "Why?" That it is much needed is as plain as the cleft on the
head of Blaveinn; that it would ultimately pay, if well managed, cannot be
doubted. It is not well to disturb much the sacred solitude of Nature's
great scenes. But we should be reasonable, and if people will go, and
ought to go, to see such places as Coiruisg, it were better that they
should be enabled to do so with some degree of comfort. The true votaries
of nature will never grudge fatigue and privation for her sake; but they
should not be made martyrs of more than is inevitable. As for scaring away
the crowd of tourists, that is hopeless, even were it laudable. Hateful as
is the idea of vulgarising the picturesque, the idea of grudging its
enjoyment to those who are worthy is still more so; and therefore, were I
lord of Camusunary, I should either build a good house there for the
entertainment of weary travellers, or give every encouragement to some one
else to do it. It were truly a Christian deed. The place is one where many
would wish to tarry for days, and get good to body and soul alike. The
situation is grand; the view outward to sea not less so than the landward.
Right in front Rum raises its beautiful blue peaks above the ocean plain,
and Eigg its high level ridge, while away to the left, on the mainland,
are the mountains of Moidart and Arisaig, and nearer, on the opposite side
of the bay, rises the bold height of green Strathaird.

Two boats are kept at the
shore for the use of tourists, and a crew of three was improvised from
among the haymakers in the adjoining meadow, one of them a young woman,
who handled the oar at least as well as the men. We had no small trouble
in shoving the boat down the long, flat beach, and still more in getting
it into deep water, and to a place where the ladies could embark. It was
one o'clock before we started, and in about twenty minutes we rounded the
point below Scur-na-Stri ("Peak of Strife)," and came in full view of that
grand and startling amphitheatre of peaks that looks down on the bay of
Scavaig. This transcendent view is obtained only from the sea, and it is
as impossible to convey any adequate idea of it in words as it is to do it
justice on canvas. Thomson's fine picture, engraved for the "Lord of the
Isles," must have been painted from a very hasty sketch, for the outlines
of the mountains are to a large extent imaginary, as are the wooded rocks
in the foreground. The sweep of the mountain, Garsveinn, that terminates
the amphitheatre on the left, from its sharp horn down to the water's
edge, is peculiarly majestic, and the picture gives no idea of it. On a
fine day this bay of Scavaig is full of peace and beauty, in wild weather
it is one of the last places a sailor would venture into. Even when the
weather is not bad, every precaution must be used against squalls, which
come down from the heights above like discharges from a battery. A short
time before our visit, a small yacht was, from want of due care in taking
in the sails, swamped in a moment. Her owner and his crew made a narrow
escape, and got off in the yawl, leaving their pretty craft with nothing
of her visible above water but a bit of the topmast. On the right of the
bay as you go in, the water is pretty deep. But in some places the sandy
bottom is visible, and there the colour of the water is the most perfect
emerald. On the other side is the anchorage, where rings have been
fastened in the rocks by the Northern Yacht Club for the purpose of
mooring vessels.

Though our voyage was
short, some of the party were very glad when it was over, and made up
their minds that they would rather go over the hill to Glen Sligachan than
return in the boat. A short scramble through a small rocky defile brought
us suddenly down upon—

"The shining levels of the
lake,"

and on its clean sandy
beach we encamped for awhile, and unpacked the prosaic but pleasant
lunch-basket. That disposed of, and a hymn on Skye having been sung, we
dispersed to do as each liked until the hour for returning. Close by us
was the easel of a young Glasgow artist, who, with a brother painter, a
native of the Misty Isle, had for about two months lived in this solitary
place. That is the right way to make good pictures; and I was glad to see
in the following spring that Mr. Murray's and Mr. Macdonald's labours at
Coiruisg were duly appreciated in the Glasgow and Edinburgh exhibitions. I
afterwards visited these young hermits in their curious little dwelling, a
wooden box with felt roof, of narrow dimensions, but sufficient for the
wants of two hardy lovers of Nature.

To enjoy Coiruisg one must
not have much society. Picnicing there in fine weather, with good company,
is of course delightful, but it is something like having a jollification
in a cathedral, and the least misanthropic of men would wish to be for a
time alone in such a place. It does not do, however, to be always in a
solemn mood, even at Coiruisg. The sun himself, smiling radiantly on the
bare rocks, and shooting shafts of splendour down the dark corries,
invites us to be joyous on a day like this. The waters of the lake, at
times black as ink, a mirror of all gloom, are to-day sparkling
gloriously, and instead of the stern silence which is usual here, the air
is resonant with the wild cries of the seagulls that hover and swarm over
the little islands halfway up the loch. Instead, too, of the total dearth
of vegetation, on which some writers (even in guide-books) wax eloquent,
you can find for yourself here a luxurious couch of heather on which to
lie and meditate; and if you take the trouble of going halfway round the
loch on the right bank, you will find at one place quite a little thicket
of hazel, osier, and alder bushes. Sir Walter, with the licence proper to
a poet and a Wizard, gives, in his description, the impression which the
place in its most characteristic aspect produces, of utter desolation and
sterility, and he thus exaggerates the idea:—

"The wildest glen but this
can show
Some touch of Nature's genial glow.
* * * * * *
But here, above, around, below,
On mountain or in glen,
No tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower,
Nor aught of vegetative power,
The weary eye may ken."

Now this is not untrue as a
poetical account of what strikes the eye on the first view of Coiruisg.
But when converted into a prosaic statement of what actually is at
Coiruisg, it becomes untrue and absurd. Thus one guide-book writer has
said, "A few blades of yellow, sickly grass cling here and there to the
surface, but even the hardy heather declines to blossom in such an
ungenial soil, There is not a leaf to rustle in the breeze," &c. Perfect
stuff! It may well be doubted if the man who wrote that nonsense ever set
eyes on Coiruisg; if he did, there must have been something very "yellow
and sickly" about his retina. There is not only plenty of heather and bog
myrtle all round the loch, as well as a fair sprinkling of the ordinary
mountain plants and flowers, but the little flat glen between the head of
the loch and the mountains is quite an oasis of verdure, watered by a very
pretty stream. True enough, the steep, rocky shelves and peaks appear as
bare and hard as if they were made of iron. But even among them, if you
climb, you will find plants and flowers in the most unlikely places,
adding pathos to the solitude by their gentle presence. On the very top of
Scur-Dubh, the most black and inaccessible of these peaks, there is a soft
and verdant cushion of moss. Let Coiruisg, therefore, have fair play: it
is sterile enough in all conscience, and there is no need to exaggerate
its sterility, nor any advantage in doing so.

It is rather a tiresome and
difficult walk round the loch, as there is no track worth mentioning. But
those who wish to have a nearer view, and a clearer conception of the
wildness of the rocky circle that surrounds the glen at the head of the
loch, should by all means go up so far. They will so understand better the
character and structure of the mountains, and closer acquaintance
increases rather than diminishes the sense of their wildness and solitude.
Their contours change so much with the position from which they are
viewed, that the variety of aspect, considering the limitation of the
range, is most remarkable. Nowhere in Scotland, except in Arran, at the
head of Glen Saunox, does one see, in the midst of solitude the most
profound, such a startling appearance of life among the strangely-shaped
knobs and peaks, and the detached blocks (blocs perches) on the ledges and
crests, particularly on the left, as you go up. It is impossible for a
person with any tincture of imagination not to feel a slightly eerie
feeling in looking at these grotesque, but grim, sometimes awful-looking
creatures, like "monsters of the prime" turned into stone, yet with a
stony life and consciousness in their fixed look and stern sphinx-like
repose.

The silence of the place,
and of all the corries in the Coolin is intense, and to many minds the
effect is depressing, what Sir Walter calls "sublime, but sad." I confess
it has not that effect on me, which indicates, perhaps, a savage element
in one's nature. For undoubtedly the chief cause of the silence is the
absence of animal life, and contentment in its absence may be considered
an unsocial feeling. Neither sheep nor deer are to be seen, though the
haunts of both are not far off—the sheep pastures in Glen Breatal, the
deer forest in Glen Sligachan. No grouse or blackcock ever whirrs through
this stony wilderness, much less does lark or mavis ever lift its cheerful
voice. An eagle may sometimes be seen soaring aloft, though I am afraid
the chances of a sight so appropriate to the scene are becoming small by
degrees, if the Glen Breatal gamekeeper wages war on the kingly bird as
successfully as he did a few years ago, when he could boast of having
killed sixty of the royal creatures in thirty-six months. Seagulls seem
pretty regularly to visit the islands in the loch, but of other birds,
except an occasional solitary stonechat, one sees none. The ticking of a
grasshopper is sometimes heard in the heather, and a nomadic frog now and
then jumps across the path. I met a tiny one high up among the rocks of
Sgur Dubh. With these exceptions, it must be said that there are few
places showing less of animal life than Coiruisg. And yet, though not
lively, compared with the Strand, or St. Kathe-rine's Docks, or the
Falkirk Market, it cannot be admitted to be in the least degree dull or
lifeless. There is life and movement perpetual in the glorious inspiring
air, whether it sigh in zephyrs, or roar in the gale; there is life and
music, wild but sweet, in the voice of the streams that rush down the
corries; there is ever-changing life in the play of the clouds, that float
serenely through the blue sky, or hurry frantically across the riven
peaks, or descend, softly like dreams, into the bosom of the hills. Even
Professor Tyndall, who seems to consider himself and us as a kind of
superior chemical retorts, evolving such still-to-be-analyzed gases as
wit, conscience, love, and faith, is not ashamed to admit certain
irresistible promptings of religious feeling amid the sublimities of
Nature. Small blame to him ! He may fairly set against anything that can
be urged against so childish a feeling, various not despicable utterances
of such men as Solomon, Socrates, Cicero, Paul, Newton. The chief
suggestion of that kind in such circumstances seems to be that of a great
surrounding and living power. It is difficult to look at those silent
majestic creatures, without imagining how they came into existence, and
even more difficult to avoid the conclusion that there must have been the
exercise of Will somewhere before that took place. Even the bubbling of
the smallest pot requires that a hand, directed by a head, should have put
water in, and kindled the fire—much more, one would say, did the flaming
up of Chim-borazo! But these are the thoughts of a poor unscientific
blockhead and child of the mist, who has no right or proper conception of
the power that is in "molecules."

HARTA CORRIE.

The two finest corries in
the Coolin, after Coiruisg, are Harta Corrie and Corrie-na-Crich, which
are on opposite sides of the central ridge, the one opening into the
middle of Glen Sligachan, the other into the head of Glen Breatal. Both
are associated with stern reminiscences of old fights between the
Macdonalds and Macleods, whose respective territories were bounded in part
by the Sligachan river. Near the foot of Harta Corrie is a huge block of
hypersthene, called the Gory Stone, where much slaughter is said to have
been committed, "on a day of the days" long ago. The name Coire-na-Crich,
or "corrie of the spoil," is said to refer to the result of a fierce fight
in the year 1601, when the Macdonalds, under their chief, the great Donald
Gorm, attacked and defeated the Macleods, commanded by Alexander, brother
of the great Sir Rory, who had taken up their position in this magnificent
battle-field.

Except to very
indefatigable walkers, and first-rate climbers, a visit to one of these
corries is quite enough for a day's work. Taking Harta Corrie first, the
most interesting route is to follow as far as possible the course of the
Sligachan river, in the lower reaches of which are many fine deep pools,
with rocky sides, and bright-green pebbly bottoms, where, if you watch
long enough, you may see a salmon showing his silver sides. A shorter way,
perhaps, is to follow the path up the glen, till you face the opening of
the corrie, but if you have been up and down that path before, you will
probably be thankful to avoid it. The subordinate spurs of
Scur-nan-Gillean extend to the opening of the corrie, terminating in a
very sharp horn, with shelving, rocky sides. Skirting the base of this
peak, Scur-na-h-uaimh ("peak of the cave "), you presently see, on the
opposite side of the Harta Corrie burn, the Gory Stone, which is about the
size of a good corn-stack, and is partially clothed with moss and shrubs.
Here you have a full view of the grand rocky wall that encircles the head
of the corrie. Facing you is the central ridge of the Coolin range,
connecting the mass of which Scur-nan-Gillean and Bruthach-na-Frith (Bruach-na-free,
"brae of the forest") are the highest points, with the southern and more
extensive mass, of which the highest points, in their order from N. to S.,
are Scur-Ghrita ("Greeta's Peak"), S. na-Banachdich ("Small -pox Peak"),
S. Dearg ("Red Peak"), S. Laghain ("Stack Peak"), S. Dubh ("Black Peak"),
and Garsveinn. The south side of the corrie is formed by the transverse
ridge going off from the main chain below S. Greeta, on the opposite side
of which lies Coiruisg. This ridge is called Druim-na-Ramh (raav), or "
the ridge of oars," for what reason it would be hard to tell. It is just
possible that oars may have been carried across it some time or other for
a strategic purpose. If so, the oarsmen must have felt themselves rather
like fish out of water in going up and down these rocks. Hardy climbers
sometimes combine Harta Corrie and Coiruisg in one excursion, going over
this ridge down on the lake, whereby they obtain a magnificent view, or
else going up Glen Sligachan to Coiruisg, and returning over Druim-na-Ramh
down to Harta Corrie, and back to Sligachan. It is hardly necessary to
say, that for the accomplishment of this excursion with any satisfaction,
a long day is necessary.

Continuing our walk
meantime up Harta Corrie, we find it increasing in grandeur as we ascend,
until at last we reach the point where the circle of peaks is completed by
the reappearance of Scur-nan-Gillean. The southern face of that peak rises
straight up from Lobhta Coire ("Loft Corrie"), an upper storey of Harta
Corrie, and presents a tremendous precipice of black rock, flanked by the
jagged ridges that extend on the left to Bruthach-na-Frith, and on the
right to Scur-na-h-uaimh. The singular jagged rocks that rise in the
centre of the ridge between Scur-nan-Gillean and Bruthach-na-Frith are now
seen right above us (one of them ludicrously like an old man's head, with
a glengarry bonnet), as we reach the head of Harta Corrie, and mounting
up-stairs—-a climb of some twenty minutes—find ourselves on the stony and
heathery floor of Lota Corrie. Here we light our cutties, reposing
luxuriously against a big stone, and thank the Lord for the good health
that makes this rough place delicious. There is not in the whole range of
the Coolin, and therefore not in all Caledonia stern and wild, a wilder
spot than this. A sufficiently large stone hurled from the top of
Scur-nan-Gillean would speedily find its way to the bottom of this attic,
a depth of some two thousand feet, unless it were knocked to fragments, as
is likely, on the way. But dreadful as is the look of the precipices, they
are not so inaccessible as an inexperienced eye would judge them to be.
Down one of these ghastly ravines above us, Professor J. D. Forbes and
Duncan McIntyre descended, and up that grisly face on the other side they
climbed, to the top of Scur-nan-Gillean, in 1839, when the first known
ascent of the peak was accomplished. To good climbers, desirous to combine
Harta Corrie and the ascent of Scur-nan-Gillean in one day, this is the
way to do it, and on the whole it is probably better to do so than to
climb the mountain from the Sligachan side, and then descend on Harta
Corrie. But this is only for good and greedy climbers. For myself, I think
one should exercise moderation in climbing as well as in eating and
drinking, and it is rather a violent appetite for which Harta Corrie is
not enough in one day. All depends, however, on one's capacity, and on the
time available. Those who have not much time to spare, and are fit for the
work, will certainly do well to go over as much ground as they can, when
they get a good day in Skye, as they know not what the morrow may bring
forth.

COIRE-NA-CRICH.

To go to Coire-na-Crich
from Sligachan you follow the track that leads to Glen Breatal and
Carabost, up to the top of the hill behind the hotel. This is a very
pleasant path, leading along the bank of the stream that comes rushing
down from the slopes of Bruthach-na-Frith, and, joining the stream from
Glen Sligachan, forms what is properly called the Sligachan River. One
passes some half-dozen very pretty little cascades on the way up,
generally falling into deep translucent pools with fine pebbly beaches,
most tempting for bathing, some of them nicely fringed with rowans and
other bushes. Such a pool has Clough described in his incomparable "Bothie
of Tober-na-Fuosich:"—

"In the interval here the
boiling: pent-up water
Frees itself by a final descent, attaining a basin,
Ten feet wide and eighteen long, with whiteness and fury
Occupied partly, but mostly pellucid, pure, a mirror;
Beautiful there for the odour derived from green rocks under,
Beautiful most of all, where beads of foam uprising
Mingle their clouds of white with the delicate hue of the stillness,
Cliff over cliff for its sides, with rowan and pendant-birch boughs."

For a quiet Sunday "daunder"
this burn-side is delightful, and it is pleasant to recall the bright
hours so spent on a Sunday in August, 1873. Among various figures seated
or recumbent among the heather that day, the most to be remembered is that
of Sheriff Glassford Bell, then taking his last holiday. "Extended long
and large" on a heathery bank, how he did gloat on the bright sky and the
fleecy clouds!

Near the summit level of
this track, a little to the left of the path, you will find a spring,
fringed with bright green moss, one of those fountains of pure icy water
in which the braes of Skye abound. If you once taste of that water, I defy
you ever to pass near it again without turning aside for a draught. It is
as worthy of a song as the Bandusian well. Sitting here with your face to
the Coolin, you see opposite to you the beautiful Fionna-Choire (" Fair
Corrie"), surmounted by the rugged peaks of Bruthach-na-Frith. The western
or right-hand slopes of that corrie are fairer and greener than is usual
among these dark hills, and one cause is the abundance of springs that
rise there. Coming down there from the top of Bru-fhach-na-Frith, on a
glorious evening in June, I made their acquaintance with much
satisfaction. I counted more than a dozen within a compass of a hundred
square yards, gushing up like cold geysers among the verdant sward. Their
united waters very quickly form a respectable stream, the same that we
have followed up from Sligachan. Leaving the path at the water-shed, we
now strike away down the brae to the left, sloping round the flank of
Bruthach-na-Frith. We see stretching to our right the long green valley of
Glen Breatal, the most beautiful glen in Skye, flanked on the one side by
the Coolin, on the other by a detached range of high grassy hills. Farther
to the right is a wide dreary moor, extending across the whole breadth of
Skye. Where it dips down to Carabost we have a glimpse of fair Loch
Bracadale, with its green banks and many islands—a sight sweet but sad to
look on, for one who has heard the reapers' song in fields where rushes
grow, and seen the cheery smoke of many a cottage where sheep now graze
among silent ruins. Presently we come full in view of Coire-na-Crich; and
my companions, to whom Skye is new, halt simultaneously. "Well, that is
grand!" exclaims my metaphysical friend. "It is," emphatically responds my
geological friend. What more could anybody say, even were he the author of
the "Book of Orm?" To give any description that would adequately express
the grandeur of Coire-na-Crich is more than I can attempt. It is a very
large corrie, with a considerable extent of comparatively level and
verdant ground below. Its upper part is divided into two smaller corries—the
Tairneilear ("Thunderer") and Coire Mhadaidh ("Fox Corrie")—by a great
vertebral ridge of rock projecting from the central saddle of the Coolin,
and cleft nearly from top to bottom by a tremendous chasm.

This stern precipice,
thrown into prominence when the basins on each side are in shade, forms a
striking object from a distance of many miles. From the point where we now
stood, the descent into the bottom of the corrie did not seem long, but it
proved longer than it seemed; and when that was accomplished we saw that,
grand as is the sweep of the corrie below, its grandest part is above.
Choosing the right-hand side, we set stout hearts to a stey brae, and in
spite of a very hot sun we found ourselves, in about half an hour, on the
second floor, i.e. in the Tairneilear. It is an amazing place. The peaks
above are not so high as in Lota Corrie, but the rock walls are more sheer
and unbroken : no man could scale them. One feels shut in here, somewhat
as in Cuiraing, utterly sequestered from the world, from all noise,
vanity, and trouble. The stillness is solemn, but soothing: it is a
perfect bath of silence. And yet it is cheerful withal, and the air is as
exhilarating as champagne. One of the charms of this corrie is, that while
you are completely girt round with the " munitions of rocks" and the
perfection of solitude, you have a grand expansive view, in the distance,
of the sea and islands, and far-stretching headlands— Macleod's Maidens,
Macleod's Tables, and Dunvegan Head—and beyond them the Atlantic, with the
blue peaks of Harris dimly on the horizon, fifty miles away.

But though it is good to be
here, we must do something more. The black walls above us are
unassailable, but yonder, overlooking the winding of Glen Breatal, is the
fine and tempting peak of Scur Thuilm (Hulim), the peak of Tulm—the same
personage, doubtless, who gave name to Duntulm, and Eilean Thuilm in
Trotternish. It is marked by an Ordnance-survey cross, the only one at
that date visible on the Coolin range. So leaving our geological friend to
investigate the beautiful trap dykes which here intersect the hard mass of
hypersthene, V. and I set off, first among huge blocks of stone, then up a
rocky face, then up a steep brae covered with big stones, then up a long
stretch of pounded debris, till at last we are astride on the saddle that
joins Scur Thuilm to the main Coolin chain, and drink in the sweet cool
breeze. Delicious is it to lie down on the short mossy grass, and look
down alternately from the one side to the other—on the one side
Coire-na-Crich, on the other Coire-Ghrita. The peak looks pretty high
still, and the ridge leading up to it is like a broken knife-edge. But one
acquainted with hills knows that places are like people, not always so bad
as they seem, and the difficulty of the ascent disappears as we face it.
What looked like a knife-blade from below was found to yield quite
sufficient and good footing; and in about a quarter of an hour we were on
the top of the peak, beside the wooden cross of the Ordnance men. The view
is fine, but comparatively limited, and we did not stay long, as the
evening was advancing. We descended nearly straight down the face looking
towards Carabost, and came on one or two "kittle" but not dangerous
places—narrow gullies, where one had to let himself down with some care
between rocks—then came the usual stretches of broken stones and gravel,
and at last we got once . more on green grass. An hour's walk brought us
to the top of the brae above Sligachan, and just as darkness had closed in
we reached the cheery hostelry, where we found that our geological
brother, with unexampled loyalty, had deferred dining till our arrival;
and right soon we were made as comfortable as Sligachan Inn knows how to
make its guests.

III.

Climbing in the Coolin
- Scur-nan-Gillean

ALL fine mountains, like
truly great persons, can afford to be closely looked at, and familiarity
with them breeds not contempt, but the opposite. Some mountains are so
attractive, that no one fond of climbing can look at them without desiring
to get to the top. Those who don't like climbing, can't understand this,
and consider it folly. Such people are fond of saying, that the best
mountain views are got from below, or half way up—a safe and easy
doctrine. There is no need to quarrel about it. Let us admit that the best
subjects for pictures are got below, and that the bird's-eye view from a
mountain top is not the most suitable for a landscape. But let it not be
said, that the desire to reach the highest attainable eminences is
foolish, and let not him who has not tasted the glory of reaching the
highest point within view, take upon him to undervalue that sensation. It
is not, of course, to be compared to the feeling of a Cortez on a peak in
Darien, or even of a successful Premier, taking his place on the front
right bench, with a triumphant majority behind him. But these are feelings
not for common men, and they are more spiritual than physical—of those
which are more physical than spiritual, there is none more inspiring than
the sensation of standing on a great height, attained with difficulty, and
with nothing higher around.

Most, if not all, of the
Coolin peaks have this quality of attraction to the climber.

Scur-nan-Gillean, the
highest of them, has in an eminent degree, and the comparative difficulty
of the ascent makes the attraction all the greater. It is really a stiff
bit of climbing, and by no means free from danger to inexperienced or
foolhardy persons. Barring the special dangers of ice and snow, there is,
perhaps, as much need of skill in climbing the Coolin hills as anywhere in
the Alps. So, at least, I have been told, by men who had done both.
Certainly,- you can't get hauled up Scur-nan-Gillean with ropes, as some
people manage to get up Mont Blanc, and Monte Rosa; you must do the work
with your own hands and feet. None but experienced climbers should go
without a guide. To a skilful mountaineer the way up is not hard to
discover; but a stranger caught in mist there might very easily come to
grief. That happened a few years ago to a fine young man from Liverpool,
who knew the Alps, and scouted the idea of a guide for Scur-nan-Gillean.
He got to the top without difficulty, but was there overtaken by mist, and
went over a precipice near the summit, at the foot of which his body was
found next day. The view from the top is very grand, though towards the
south and south-west, it is much interrupted by other high peaks. The
crown of the hill is not many yards in breadth, and on three sides there
is a pretty sheer descent of about a thousand feet. The view right down to
Lota-Corrie and Harta-Corrie is particularly impressive, especially in the
evening, and the distant panorama of sea and mountains to the east and
north, from Ardnamurchan to Sutherland, is, as may be imagined, one of the
finest sights to be seen in Scotland.

I am sorry to say that the
recent Ordnance Survey has taken away somewhat from the moderate height of
Scur-nan-Gillean. Professor Forbes estimated it at 3,220 feet, but the
Survey has reduced it to 3,167. The neighbouring peak of Bruach-na-Free,
which is only a few feet lower, 3,143, may be combined in the same
excursion with Scur-nan-Gillean. To reach it, however, you must descend a
very steep and rocky place, into the corrie called by the awful name of
the Basadair (executioner), which is surmounted by the curious broken
crags between Scur-nan-Gillean and Bruach-na-Free. This is well worth
doing, for those who can. Once you get to the top of the latter hill, the
descent down to Sligachan is delightful, much more so than from
Scur-nan-Gillean.

The heights of the other
principal peaks of the Coolin have not yet been determined, with the
exception of Scur Thuilm (2,884); but there can be no doubt, I think, that
Scur-nan-Gillean is the highest. Scur Dearg I calculated with an aneroid
at 3,135 feet, Scur-a-Sgumain at 3,127, Scur Dubh at 3,077, and
Scur-na-Banachdich at 3,030; but I think Scur Ghrita, which I have not
ascended, is probably next in height to Scur-nan-Gillean. There is only
one peak of all these which is really inaccessible, and that is the summit
of Scur Dearg. It consists of a pillar of rock, about fifty feet above the
rest of the ridge, and nearly perpendicular. It might be possible, with
ropes and grappling irons, to overcome it; but the achievement seems
hardly worth the trouble. That pillar, as seen from a distance, has a very
peculiar and puzzling appearance ; from some points it looks like a
chimney can, from others like a wild beast's horn.

SCUR-NA-BANACHDICH----SCUR
DEARG----SCUR-A-SGUMAIN.

I had been told at Glen
Breatal that another peak, a very beautiful one, which forms a prominent
object from the house there, had never been ascended, and had foiled the
Ordnance men. This naturally stirred my desire to attempt it, which I did,
accompanied by a shepherd, A. Macrae, well acquainted with all the hills
and passes, and a first-rate climber. He had a peculiar style of walk, a
sort of amble, and seemed to glide up the hillside like a cloud. He, too,
had never been up, and had never heard of any body having done it. We
first went up Scur-na-Banachdich, a charming climb, and there I discovered
the meaning of that singular name, the Smallpox Peak, which I never could
understand. The surface of the rocks is marked by little red spots, caused
by oxidation, whence no doubt the name. As showing how formidable in
appearance these heights are, Professor Forbes says of this peak, that "it
may perhaps be accessible" on the Breatal side. We found no difficulty in
any part of the ascent.

From this peak we went on,
down and up to Scur Dearg, and made the acquaintance of that formidable
horn above mentioned. It stands out a little from the main ridge, and is
the termination of a precipice of some 1,200 feet that goes right down
into the basin above Coiruisg. At this point our progress along the ridge
was barred, and to get at the desired peak further on we had to descend a
chasm into a deep stony corrie, with a small dark loch at its lower end,
from which on the previous day I had obtained, out of the midst of driving
mist, a single glimpse of this same peak, one of the wildest objects I
ever saw. This corrie is called Coire Laghain, and the tarn Loch-a-Laghain,
and the peak, for which my companion knew no name, I proposed to call
Scur-a-Laghain. I should have been inclined to think that the very
appropriate name Scur-a-Sgumain (Stack Peak) belonged to it, but he
assured me that the neighbouring but lower peak to the west was
Scur-a-Sgumain. I confess I doubt this; insomuch that I renounce the
honour of bestowing a name on this lovely peak. The climb up on the other
side of the corrie was stiff and warm, and some judgment was required to
find a way, and still more when it came to circumventing the peak. We did
it, however, without much difficulty : one or two places were somewhat
trying, requiring good grip of hands and feet; but on the whole I have
seen worse places. Whether this peak was really ascended for the first
time that day, I cannot say, but it seemed very like it. There was, at any
rate, no sign on the top of any one having ever been on it before, and, of
course, we thought it our duty to make up for that by erecting a cairn,
and adding a few feet to the height of the peak. A few days later, I had
the satisfaction of admiring this cairn with a friend, from the top of
Scur Dubh, and we agreed that we had never seen a more perfectly
symmetrical and beautiful peak than Scur-a-Sgumain. From an opposite point
of view, the Col above Coire-na-Crich, it has a most awful and
inaccessible appearance.

The view from this peak is
exceedingly fine and varied. The sea prospect towards the south and west
is extensive, and, but for a slight haze, we should have seen the whole
Long Island chain, from Lewis to Barray, without interruption. Rum towered
in front in great beauty, flanked right and left by the long ridge of
Cannay, and the high terrace of Eigg; Mull appeared in the distance beyond
them, faintly blue, and still more faintly on the left the mountains of
Appin, seen beyond Ardnamurchan and Morven, mingled with the light clouds.
In the opposite direction, the view of the whole amphitheatre surrounding
Coiruisg is about the best to be got, unless that from Scur-na-Banachdich,
which is more central, and from which the bird's-eye view of the loch
itself is better. The views down into the corries on three sides are very
impressive, and the precipices of Scur Dearg, and Scur Dubh, to left and
right, are seen to great advantage.

SCUR DUBH—COIRUISG BY
MOONLIGHT.

Scur Dubh is one of the
most formidable of the Coolin peaks, and was reputed "inaccessible." The
ascent of it, or rather the descent, was, on the whole, the hardest
adventure I have had among these hills. I came over with a friend from
Sligachan to Coiruisg, and, after visiting the young artists already
mentioned in their curious habitation, we commenced the ascent about four
in the afternoon from the rocks above Loch Scavaig. Considering that the
sun was to set that evening (6th September) about seven o'clock, it would
have been extreme folly to have attempted such an excursion so late in the
day, had not the barometer been at "set fair," and the night been that of
the full moon, of which we wished to take advantage for a moonlight view
of Coiruisg. The ascent is a very rough one, up the corrie between Scur
Dubh and Garsveinn, and partly along the banks of the "Mad Stream." This
corrie, well named the Rough Corrie ("Garbh Choire"), is full of enormous
blocks of stone, of a very volcanic appearance, many of them of a reddish
colour and cindery surface. About halfway up we were overtaken by a shower
of rain, and took shelter for a while under a ledge of rock. When it
cleared a little, we saw that the ridge above was covered with mist, but,
trusting in the barometer, we held on, expecting that by the time we got
to the top the mist would have passed away, as it did. The last quarter of
the ascent was very hard work, and not quite free from danger. It was
about seven when we found ourselves on the summit, a very narrow, rocky
ridge, but covered at the highest point with a thick bed of green, spongy
moss. The rock is very dark in hue, blacker than usual, whence the name of
the peak. It is the same hypersthene rock as in all the Coolin, but here,
as on most of the other heights, are small dykes of clay-stone, reaching
to the very summit, and occasionally producing ugly chasms, where it has
worn away.

We had not much time to
admire the view, as the sun had just set behind the black battlements,
though we hoped to have twilight to last us to the bottom of the corrie on
the other side. It did suffice to light us to the first floor, but no
more, and even that we found no joke. The descent was tremendously blocked
with huge stones, and the tarn at the bottom of the corrie is surrounded
with them. About halfway down we came to a place where the invaluable
plaid came into use. My companion, being the lighter man, stood above,
with his heels well set in the rock, holding the plaid, by which I let
myself down the chasm. Having got footing, I rested my back against the
rock, down which my lighter friend let himself slide till he rested on my
shoulders. This little piece of gymnastics we had to practise several
times before we got to the bottom of the glen above Coiruisg. But there
were, I think, two or three distinct floors between the first and the
last. From eight to half-past ten we descended, in almost total darkness,
for though the moon rose about nine, and we could see her mild glory in
the depths below, we were all the way down in the deep shadow of the peak
behind us. Most of the way was among shelving ledges of rock, and in one
place it seemed to me that there was no going further, for there was no
apparent outlet from the environment of rocks except down a dark gulley,
over which a stream descended in a small cascade. The thought of passing
the night there was not pleasant, and we tried in all directions before we
ventured on the experiment of wriggling down the wet rock, in a perfectly
vermicular manner, and scrambled round the edge of the waterfall on to
something that could be called terra firma. I certainly never in the same
space of time went through so much severe bodily exercise as in that
descent from Scur Dubh to Coiruisg. My very finger-tops were skinned. from
contact with the rough-grained rock. But the difficulties of the descent
were compensated for when we got, with thankful hearts, into the full
flood of the moonlight on the last floor, the valley above Coiruisg.

How the loch and the
surrounding mountains looked at that hour I will not attempt to describe.
If the silence is solemn and subduing at mid-day, it may be imagined what
it is at night. It is even deepened by the distant voice of the streams,
coming down these corries so full of darkness and awe, the great peaks
bending round as if to listen, and the moon, high in heaven, looking
serenely down on the glittering loch, and the still glen, and the calm,
ghostly rocks, "steeped in silentness." But though the scene was solemn,
nothing could be more delightfully peaceful, and the air was so mild, that
I could have sat or lain there, on the nice gravelly beach of one of the
little creeks, with pleasure till morning. A few minutes' rest, however,
was all we took, and, after wasting half-an-hour in climbing up
Druim-na-Ramh (called, strangely enough, in some guide books, Drumhairi),
with the idea of going over into Harta Corrie for a change, which we
abandoned on finding ourselves at the foot of a precipice, we descended
again to the loch, and plodded our way all along its western margin, then
up the dark rough brae, then down again into Glen Sligachan, and so on all
the way by that weary path. By this time the morning air was coming
slightly chilly up the glen, and the precious plaid, which was a burden up
the hill, was now a real comfort. Blaveinn looked very grand, and so did
Marscowe and Scur-nan-Gillean, but the thought of some food and sleep was
of more overpowering interest. Oh, the length of those last three miles !
It seemed as if a malicious enchanter had shoved away Sligachan in our
absence a long way to the west, and were still moving it from us every
half-mile as we got on. And when at last, after a fifteen hours' airing,
we stood in front of the inn, at three a.m., behold, it was all dark and
silent, and, worse still, the door was locked! How we rang long in vain,
not wishing to disturb the household by making much noise (especially on
Sunday morning); how we got in at last; how the cheerful host and the
angelic Phillis waited on us with perfect readiness and good-humour; how
we refreshed exhausted nature with meat and drink; how we learned that our
incomparable geological brother had waited un-dined for us till midnight,
excelling himself; how we laid us gingerly down on our abraded joints; how
we slept till noon, the sleep of the weary; and how we spent that day of
blessed rest along the banks of the lovely burn, lifting our eyes to the
hills—all these things it is pleasant now to recall to mind.

BLAVEINN.

I have always considered
Blaveinn the finest hill in Skye, and a remarkable example of the value of
form, and variety of outline, in comparison with mere bulk, in the
production of mountain grandeur. Blaveinn is only 3,042 feet high, a pigmy
compared with the giants of the Alps. It has neither glacier, nor "bergschrund,"
nor "neve," to boast of, nor is there need of axe, or rope, or ladder to
conquer it. But yet is it a most stately mountain, with a noble contour,
and a majestic head. Look up to it from Kilbride, or the Torrin shore, and
even if you have seen the Jungfrau, and the Matterhorn, you will feel that
this, too, is a grand, a stupendous object. Unlike Scur-nan-Gillean, and
its other neighbours of the Coolin, it stands alone, with no brother near
its throne; but it has an attendant retinue of wild crags and pinnacles,
and is flanked on the east and north by walls of stem black precipice.
Perhaps its most peculiar feature is its very long dorsal ridge, which,
with its graduated succession of notches, greatly contributes to the
impression it conveys of a height beyond its actual dimensions. Thus from
the opposite coast, at Loch Hourn, and Glenelg, it seems quite to tower
above the Coolin. though it is really lower than the highest peaks of that
range. This long back, terminating in the bold cleft head, with the sudden
descent towards a continuous ridge of jagged spires and battlements, forms
quite a unique profile, and the effect at evening, when the outline is
visible, especially if there be a mixture of cloud and sunset colour, is
indescribably fine. The colour of the mountain is also remarkable, being,
even at a comparatively short distance, in general a deep blue-black,
which under the light of the evening sun becomes purple or violet. This is
probably the origin of its name, Blath-bheinn, in Gaelic, meaning "the
mountain of bloom." Blath also means,"warm," but there is nothing
entitling Blaveinn to that epithet above any of its neighbours. After this
explanation, it is hardly necessary to say, that "Ben Blaven," as it is
sometimes called, is as tautological as it would be to say, "Mount
Goatfell."

There is no hill in Skye
better worth climbing, not merely for the view from the top, but for what
is seen on the way up, and all round it. The nearest terminus is
Broad-ford, which is also the proper starting-point for those who desire
to see Coiruisg without going through Glen Sligachan, or to combine a
visit to the Spar Cave, with the excursion by boat to Scavaig. The most
convenient way of ascending is to go up from Kirkibost. You go through a
longish glen, then up a steepish ridge, on the other side of which you
find a beautiful tarn, sleeping quietly under the brow of the mountain,
something like Loch Etichan on Ben-Mac-Duibh, but prettier. The. ascent
from this to the top is rough and rocky, but free from danger. The crest,
though narrow, is partially clothed with rough herbage and moss. The view
down into Glen Sligachan is grand, there being nothing in the way between
you and the bottom. Not less so is the view across the glen, of the whole
Coolin range, including, if I mistake not, a peep of Coiruisg. I can't say
whether it is possible to get along the jagged ridge to the north-east; if
so, it would be a nice variety to go that way, and along the Red Hills to
Sligachan, or down the other side to the head of Loch Eynort, which is one
of the most picturesque spots on that wonderful road between Broadford and
Sligachan. But whether that rocky ridge be possible or not, it is worth
inspecting, for the sake of the view one gets there of the precipices on
the east side, and into the lonely corrie below. There is a wall of rock
there, many hundred feet in height, the most perpendicular I have seen. I
let down some stones over its edge, which seemed to touch nothing before
they reached the bottom. This is the face of the mountain one sees coming
along from Broadford, a view never to be forgotten.

It is a remarkable
circumstance that the mountains on the opposite sides of Glen Sligachan
are, with one exception, entirely different in their geological
composition. The whole visible mass of the Coolin is generally believed to
be composed of what Dr. McCulloch named hypersthene Rock, a compound of
hypersthene with labradorite or Labrador felspar. It is one of the hardest
and most enduring of rocks, of a
peculiar colour, varying between green and blue, and looking, when
weather-worn, almost black. This it is that invests these hills with so
very deep and beautiful a hue, even at a few miles' distance. The range on
the opposite, or east, side of the glen, beginning with Glamaig, and
including the Red Hills and Marscowe, is composed of syenite, generally of
a reddish colour, sometimes of a greyish green. The structure of the hills
on each side is not less distinct, the Coolin being broken and serrated to
a degree quite peculiar, while Glamaig and the Red Hills are conical, and
comparatively tame in character. But Blaveinn, though on the same side of
the glen with the latter hills, is in geological character, and equally in
aspect, of the same composition as the Coolin range. Its base, however,
appears to correspond in structure with a curious contact of the two rocks
visible on the west side of the glen, between Harta-Corrie and Loch-nan-Aan,
where the yellowish felspar rock is seen distinctly underlying the dark-coloured
hypersthene rock above it. If, as seems beyond doubt, the Coolin is of
volcanic origin, it would seem that Blaveinn was the centre of an
independent forge of its own.

"O Blaven! rocky Blaven!
How I long to be with you again,
To see lashed gulf and gully
Smoke white in the windy rain—
To see in the scarlet sunrise
The mist-wreaths perish with heat,
The wet rock slide with a trickling gleam
Right down to the cataract's feet:
While toward the crimson islands,
Where the sea-birds flutter and skirl,
A cormorant flaps o'er a sleek ocean floor
Of tremulous mother of pearl."

GLEN BREATAL.

I have called this the most
beautiful glen in Skye. There are, in truth, very few glens in Skye: there
is hardly room for them. But if I had called it one of the finest glens in
Scotland, I should not have gone far wrong. There are certainly none that
I can remember with such a view of mountains, except three—Glen Sligachan,
Glencoe, and Glen Sannox. The beauty of this glen is, that being itself
delightfully green and pastoral, and watered by a charming stream full of
good fish (not free), you look up from it to a high and long range of
tremendous rocky walls and peaks. There is something exquisitely piquant
in the contrast between the cheerful verdure and comfort below (especially
if one is in Captain Cameron's house) and the utter sterility and wildness
of the grim scarred rocks above. I know nothing approaching to it in this
respect, except some spots, such as the Grindelwald, in Switzerland. No
enthusiastic lover of mountains, above all, no artist, ought to leave Skye
without getting this view of the Coolin Hills. I saw it but once as a
child, and did not see it again for many years; but I found, on going
back, that the deep childish impression was true. There is not, in my
humble opinion, a more perfectly unique, a more wonderful, or more
beautiful view in all Scotland, than that from the brae above Glen Breatal,
on the Minginish side, looking towards the Coolin Hills, where you see in
succession Scur Thuilm, Scur Ghrita, Scur-na-Banachdich, Scur Dearg,
Scur-a-Scumain, and the corries between them, all marked, when the violet
hues of an August sunset descend on them, with lines and colours so
distinct and splendid, that you wish there were a Turner on the spot to
record them for the pleasure of all mankind.

IV.

The Sea Coast

THE chief thing that gives
character to the scenery of our north-west Highlands and Islands is the
combination of mountain and sea. Apart from the sea, all that we can show
of the grand and picturesque is small compared with Switzerland. But that
majestic element gives compensation, in its infinite variety, for the want
of enormous heights, everlasting snow, green valleys, and towering pines.
No lake or river, however grand, can equal the immense, ever-changing,
many-voiced sea. It gives dignity and individuality to bare rocks and
treeless islands, even in the absence of hills. But where it washes the
base of bold cliffs and mountains, and sends its waters far in to the
bosom of the hills, and the openings of "long withdrawing glens," then it
produces a kind of scenery which nothing inland can equal in interest, to
those at least who admire the sea. When with this is combined an expansive
view towards the ocean and the setting sun, a horizon enlivened with the
outlines of distant isles, and everywhere good harbours within reach, you
have that which makes the western coast of Scotland the paradise of
yachters. What can be more glorious than the glistening expanse one sees
on a summer morning between Ardnamur-chan and Skye—a vast plain of shining
silver, inlaid, as far as the eye can reach, with blue island gems, and
carrying the imagination away a thousand leagues beyond them, where that
same ocean breaks on the shores of the western world.

Even without its mountains,
the sea-coast of Skye, and the views all round it, would be worth going to
see. But the sea and the cliffs, and the mountains together, make it what
it is—unique. I heard a great English artist, who had been sadly used by
the weather during a short visit to Skye, in which he got not even a
glimpse of the Coolin, say that the drive from Sligachan to Broadford the
morning he came away, when the sun shone clear after two days of rain,
showing the mountains on every side draped lightly with snow, was worth
all the journey from London. He had seen nothing finer in "the Isles of
Greece," with which he was better acquainted than most people.

Some ingenious person once
calculated that the coast-line of Skye, following all the windings of its
lochs, extends to the respectable circumference of nine hundred miles. Be
that as it may, one gets an imposing idea of the magnitude of the island
by sailing round it, as it was once my luck to do, in good weather and in
good company, in the good ship Ringdove. Our luck was, indeed, singular,
for during a fortnight's cruise in the Hebrides we had but one bad day,
and during our circumnavigation of Skye we had a favouring wind all the
way round. The first day we sailed with a fine south-west breeze from Rum,
where we had encountered our only bad weather, which, however, the
hospitality of Captain Macleod made more than tolerable. The huge blue
mass of the Coolin, rising clear out of the sea, duly impressed us all.
But my friends were even more surprised by the rich culture and civilised
elegance that appeared in the green woods and slopes, and architectural
grace of Armadale Castle. Grandeur they had expected, but beauty they were
scarcely prepared for. In combination of gentle beauty with wild
magnificence, there is nothing on the Scottish coasts equal to this view,
unless it be the view from Raasay House looking towards Sligachan.

The breeze slackened as we
entered Fylerhea, where our cautious skipper waited for the turn of the
tide, having a lively horror of the swirling eddies that make that narrow
strait at times boil like a little Maelstrom. We had a delightful passage
through the Kyles, and saw their prettily wooded braes to the best
advantage. After passing Kyleakin the breeze fell away, and by the time we
got to the Sound of Raasay it was dark, if that could be called darkness
which was in fact only a long twilight. Here my friends first saw what
Skye can show in the way of sunsets, and it was unanimously admitted that
the exhibition was not only up to the mark, but much beyond the average.
To use the truly Highland image of the Bard Macdonald,

"Every colour of the tartan
Streaked the heavens."

Golden islets floated in
the glowing sky, their edges burning as the sun moved down, while up to
the zenith the amber expanse was flecked with innumerable violet clouds.
As the sun descended, the gold became pink, and then purple, and the
floating islets stretched in slender bars to the north. When the sun
disappeared the sky changed from flame to straw colour, and then to a
delicate green, out of which presently shone the faint twinkle of a star.
Then the shadows of the great hills, Glamaig and Beinn Fhionavaig, fell
solemnly on the glassy sea, and our track was through a blaze of
phosphorescence, every ripple as we moved along showing a crest of
sparkling diamonds.

There were lively doings
that night at Raasay, fireworks, and music, and beating of drums, for the
young laird, Mr. Rainy, was coming home in his yacht. Before another year
had passed that promising young man was dead, and in the short time since
then the island has twice changed hands. Here Johnson and Boswell were
entertained in 1773, along with a large company, in the house of the
chief, Macleod of Raasay. The doctor was charmed with his reception.
"Without," he said, "is the rough ocean and the rocky land, the beating
billows and the howling storm ; within is plenty and elegance, beauty and
gaiety, the song and the dance. In Raasay, if I could have found an
Ulysses, I had fancied a Phasacia." The land rental of that hospitable
chieftain has been calculated at about £250 a year. Last year the island
(without Ronay, &c.) was sold for £62,000, and the rental of the estate
was given in the previous year as £2,770.

Next morning we found
ourselves at anchor in Portree Bay, that snuggest and prettiest of all
Hebridean harbours, excepting Tobermory. I shall not offer any statistical
information about Portree, but shall tell instead a little story,
redounding to the honour of one of its natives, and telling, not like the
old tales, of blood and revenge, but of the perfect love that casteth out
fear. Some years ago there was at Portree a young man, whom we may call
Malcolm Macdonald, and a young woman, who may be named Mary Macleod, and
they loved each other—at least Mary loved truly and well— and Malcolm
appeared to return that love. But Malcolm's love was not of the kind that
the Gaelic poet calls "an gaol nach failnich," the love that fails not;
and he went away to sea, and forgot Mary, and she heard from him no more.
After some years a vessel came into Portree Bay, and the fearful news soon
reached the shore that there was cholera on board, and that one of the men
who had been seized, a native of the place, was to be landed if a house
could be found to lay him in. After much difficulty a place was found in
an unoccupied building, and there a bed was made for the dying man. The
next thing was to find a nurse to attend him, and here the difficulty was
greater, for the Highland dread of infectious diseases, among which the
"cholera morbus" was reckoned one of the deadliest, is intense, and
sometimes cruel. At last, after many vain inquiries by the doctor and the
sheriff, a woman came and offered her services. Her offer was gladly
accepted, and she watched the sick man tenderly till he died. The man was
Malcolm Macdonald, and the woman was Mary Macleod.

From Portree Bay to the
north point of Skye, Rhu Hunish, a distance of fifteen to twenty miles,
the coast scenery is without exception magnificent, while the view outward
towards the coast of Ross-shire is not less so. First comes a long range
of terraced cliffs, mixed with grassy slopes, above which, about a mile
from the sea, tower the black precipices of Storr, with its wonderful
outworks of crag, and spire, and turret, the outlines of which vary
incessantly as we move along. About five miles on, at Rhu-nam-braithrean
(or Brother's Point) begins a range of basaltic, or at least columnar
cliffs, extending, with slight interruption, about ten miles, and
presenting in some places aspects of remarkable beauty. Lest I should be
thought to exaggerate their merits, I shall quote Dr. John McCulloch.
"Although the columns are not so accurately formed, nor so distinctly
marked, as in Staffa, their effect at the proper point of sight is equally
regular, while from the frequent occurrence of groups, recesses, and
projecting masses, and from the absence of any superincumbent load, they
are far superior in lightness of appearance, as well as in elegance and
variety of outline. In many cases, where the columnar trap lies above the
horizontal strata, the appearance of architectural imitation is much more
perfect than in any part of Staffa." At one place the combination of the
perpendicular plaits of trap and transverse bars of limestone is so
strikingly suggestive of tartan that it goes by the name of the " Kilt
Rock." Not far from it a picturesque cascade falls over the cliff to the
shore. The general structure and aspect of the rocks are extremely like
those of the Giant's Causeway, though they are not so high in any part as
those of Pleaskin Point.

As we sailed along past
Loch Staffin, we got a full outside view of Cuiraing, and of the whole
range of' remarkable hills and hollows extending from that to Storr. They
are as unlike the Coolin as trap is to hypersthene, but in their own way
not less curious and interesting. Such a combination of rugged rocks,
grassy slopes, and pyramidal green hills, with here and there a tarn
nestling between them, I know nowhere else.

A few miles beyond Loch
Staffin are some remarkable caves, which can be visited only in calm
weather, at low water, and with a south-west wind—three conditions that
one does not often find concurring there. Even in the calmest day there is
a heavy swell on that shore, and when a north-easter blows into Loch
Staffin, rolling the big pebbles on the beach, the roar is heard like
thunder many miles away. My geological friend and I were so fortunate as
to get a sight of these caves on a lovely September day in 1873. One of
them was very lofty and narrow, and as we glided in the water was so calm
that we could see through its green depths the great tangles waving below,
studded with sea-urchins. But before we were half-way in, the tide wave
came swelling up, sucking us in with such strength that it needed great
care to keep the boat from being dashed against the perpendicular walls
—and what a place for a capsize! One would have as little chance of escape
as in the middle of the Minch. To the height of ten or fifteen feet the
cave walls were of a delicate pink colour, contrasting beautifully with
the emerald water below, and caused, I suppose, by some marine growth.
Another cave had a great opening in the roof, and there are other two with
smaller apertures, through which the water is discharged in a storm with a
noise like a cannon-shot. These are called "The Gunners." The columnar
structure is not so remarkably displayed in this part of the coast, except
in some places where the columns have been worn away by the waves, leaving
a slope as clean and smooth as if it had been sliced with a chisel, and
the heads of the columns as distinctly marked as at Staffa or the Giant's
Causeway.

The currents are very
strong off Rhu Hunish, and for awhile we were so tossed about, and made so
little way, that our anxious skipper betrayed unmistakable symptoms of
panic. For about an hour we bobbed back and forward, during which we got a
good view of the islet of Trodda, from which the district of Trotternish
has its name; of the flat-topped rock called Macdonald's Table; of the
Iasgair, or Fisherman; of Fladda Chuain, where libations for a wind used
to be poured out on a sacred blue stone in St. Columba's Chapel, and where
rest the bones of a mysterious monk, O'Gorgon; and of the Shiant Isles,
whose grand basaltic face shone bright in the sun. Then we slipped along
past old Duntulm, once the chief seat in Skye of the Macdonalds, past
Bornaskittaig bay and point, where Prince Charlie landed with Flora
Macdonald, past the point and caves of Dunan, about which McCulloch is
eloquent, and into the well-sheltered bay of Uig. This is one of the
prettiest places in Skye, described by Pennant as "a fertile bottom
laughing with corn," of perfect horseshoe shape, and surrounded by high
green slopes. It generally produces the earliest crops in the island. In
this pleasant nook we anchored for two nights, spending the day at
Cuiraing, and the evening in the hospitable house of Captain Fraser.

We next sailed over to the
point of Vaternish, across the mouth of Loch Snizort, the shores of which
are the least picturesque part of the coast of Skye, though there are some
pretty spots here and there, such as Lyndale and Grishernish. Beyond
Grishernish the coast again becomes interesting and cliffy. At Diubeg a
fine cascade comes down the rocks to the sea, and beyond it are the green
slopes and rugged heights of Scor Horen. On the right a few miles to sea,
are the Ascrib Islands, a great resort of seals and sea-fowl, and a
favourite haunt of the Nimrod of Skye, Captain Macdonald. Beyond these,
and all through the day, the magnificent outline of Harris rose above the
horizon. Passing the point of Vaternish, we had on our left Loch Bay, a
beautiful little harbour, protected from the west by the green island of
Isay, of which Macleod offered to make Johnson laird, if he would live
there for a month every year. We then sailed across the mouth of Loch
Dunvegan, where, if my will had been law, we should have gone in for at
least a night. Dunvegan Castle is perhaps the oldest inhabited house in
Scotland, the part of it at least that is old, which unfortunately (so far
as venerable picturesqueness is concerned) is now small, compared with the
modern additions and improvements. Here Johnson spent a week with delight,
and, to use his own polite words, "had tasted lotus, and was in danger of
forgetting that I was ever to depart." He came on a Monday, and on
Saturday Boswell proposed that they should go next Monday. "No, sir," said
the doctor, "I will not go before Wednesday; I will have some more of this
good." One has pleasure in remembering that he was made so comfortable
there, and in picturing him with his old head encased in a flannel
night-cap, which Mrs. Macleod made for him, going out on a stormy evening
into the courtyard of the castle to fetch an armful of peats for his own
fire, from the stack which stood there. His graceful letter to Macleod,
written from the manse of Sleat on the eve of his departure, is preserved
among the treasures of the castle, and is worth reproduction, though
already in print:—

"Dear Sir,—We are now on
the margin of the sea, wishing for a boat and a wind. Boswell grows
impatient, but the kind treatment which I find wherever I go makes me
leave with some heaviness of heart an island which I am not very likely to
see again. Having now gone as far as horses can carry us, we thankfully
return them. My steed will, I hope, be received with kindness; he has
borne me, heavy as I am, over ground both rough and steep with great
fidelity, and for the use of him, as for your other favours, I hope you
will believe me thankful, and willing, at whatever distance we may be
placed, to show my sense of your kindness by any offices of friendship
that may fall within my power. Lady Macleod and the young ladies have, by
their hospitality and politeness, made an impression on my mind which will
not easily be effaced. Be pleased to tell them that I remember them with
great tenderness and great respect. I am, Sir,

"Your most obliged and most
humble servant, "Sam. Johnson."

As a companion to that
letter may be given one, hitherto imprinted, of Sir Walter Scott, who
spent one pleasant night at Dunvegan. Here probably he composed, to the
air of the most pathetic of all pipe tunes, the verses called "McCrimmon's
Lament," in which he has so expressed the spirit of the strain, that his
verses are generally supposed to be a paraphrase of a Gaelic original,
which they are not. With the exception of one verse, the only Gaelic
original known to me was composed by the father of the editor of Good
Words. Sir Walter's letter was addressed to Mrs. Macleod of Macleod, and
is as follows :—

"Dear Madam,—I have been
postponing from day to day requesting your kind acceptance of my best
thanks for the beautiful purse of your workmanship, with which I was some
time since honoured. The hospitality of Dunvegan will long live in my
recollection, and I am not a little flattered by a token which infers that
my visit was not forgotten by the Lady of the Castle. I venture to send
(what has long delayed this letter) a copy of a poem which owes its best
passages to Macleod's kindness and taste, in directing me to visit the
extraordinary scenery between his country and Strathaird, which rivals in
grandeur and desolate sublimity anything that the Highlands can produce.
The volume should have reached you in a quarto shape, but while I sought
an opportunity of sending it, behold, the quartos disappeared, and I was
obliged to wait for the second impression, of which I now send a copy. I
shall be proud and happy if it serves to amuse a leisure hour at Dunvegan.
It has had one good consequence to the author, that it has served to
replenish the purse with which the Lady Macleod presented him. Yet he has
so much of the spirit of the old bard, that he values the purse more than
the contents. Should Macleod and you ever come to Edinburgh, I will scarce
forgive you unless you let such a hermit as I am know of your being in the
neighbourhood of his recess, and I would have particular pleasure in
endeavouring to show you anything that might interest you. I do not
despair of (what would give the most sincere pleasure) again being a guest
at Dunvegan. My eldest girl sings 'Cathail gu la'— excuse Saxon
spelling—and I hope to send you, in a few weeks, a very curious treatise
on the Second Sight, published (not for sale) from a manuscript in 1691,
which fell into my hands. Hector MacDonald has promised me the means to
send it.

"I beg my respectful
compliments to Miss Macleod, my kindest remembrances to the Chieftain, and
my best wishes to the little tartan chief and nursery.

"Believe me, with much
respect, dear madam (for I will not say Mrs. Macleod, and Lady M. is out
of fashion),

"Your honoured and obliged,
and truly grateful,

"Walter Scott.
"Edinburgh, March 3rd, 1815"

Near Dunvegan Head, at a
placed called Galtrigill, is a stone hitherto unknown to fame, supposed to
possess qualities analogous to those of the Blarney Stone. The virtue it
communicates, however, is not eloquence or blarney, but politeness, and
the process is not by kissing, but by sitting on it. The name of this
virtuous stone is Clach a Mhodha, or, the "Stone of Manners." It is a
plain-looking slab of whinstone, about eight feet by five in dimensions.
Local antiquaries suppose that it was at one time used as a judgment-seat,
and the chief magistrate of Skye, when he makes a progress through his
jurisdiction, usually honours this ancient relic with a visit, though he
prefers a modern arm-chair for judicial purposes.

Dunvegan Head is a bold,
rocky promontory, facing North Uist, which is twelve miles away. A little
beyond the point is a curious, grassy retreat, between an upper and under
cliff, to which there is access only by a cleft from above. The summit is
1,025 feet above the sea, an imposing height. Beyond this is the little
bay of Polteel, with a fine sandy beach, on which I have seen a glittering
haul of salmon, sea-trout, and flounders, trawled in on a summer night
long ago. Into this bay runs the Hammer River, rising at the foot of one
of Macleod's Tables, and watering the pretty valley of Glen dale. The
point of Fest, to the south of Polteel, is one of the wildest on all these
coasts. Long ridges of black rock jut out from green braes, over which the
Atlantic wave breaks tremendously, with a west or south-west wind. Here
begins a range of fine cliffs, extending, with little interruption, to the
entrance of Loch Bracadale, and reaching, in the great "Bida," or Peak of
Vaterstein, a height of 966 feet. Here the rock is nearly perpendicular,
and from its summit there is a beautiful grassy slope inland, where some
of the best black cattle in Skye are pastured. A story is told of a
good-natured gentleman who was once farmer here, to whom the intelligence
was brought, one fine summer afternoon, that about twenty of his calves
had, in a wild freak, jumped down this precipice into the sea. The good
man, instead of swearing, or tearing his hair, simply remarked, like a
true philosopher, "What a splash they must have made!"

Loch Bracadale begins at
the point of Idrigill, off which, a few hundred yards from the cliff, the
three remarkable rocks called "Macleod's Maidens," stand out of the water.
The tallest of the three, which is about two hundred feet high, is a
stately object, bearing, at a little distance, a resemblance, by no means
fanciful, to a long-robed female figure. There is even an indication of
"flounces" produced by the stratification of the rock. The other two are
much smaller, and appear as if sitting or kneeling before their big
sister, Nic-Cleosgair Mhor, as she is called by the natives. A little
beyond this is a very grand arched cave, one of many on this coast. In
another of them poor Lady Grange was confined for some time, and, I
believe, died. Here begins the bay of Orbost, or Varkasaig, one of the
most picturesque in its shores of the bays of Skye, and the northernmost
of several that indent the coast of Loch Bracadale. Pennant described Loch
Bracadale as "the Milford Haven of these parts," and the best site in Skye
for a town. There is as yet neither town nor village there, nor is there
likely to be. On the contrary, the population is becoming small by degrees
and unbeautifully less, the claims of the "woolly people" being paramount,
and themselves so much more easily disposed of than creatures with only
two legs, without wool, and unfit for eating. The bipeds, also, are
supposed to have souls, which makes them all the more troublesome. This
state of matters makes the shores of Loch Bracadale less interesting than
they used to be, though in natural features it is the finest loch in Skye.
Its entrance is diversified and guarded by islands, the land along its
shores is for the most part green, and the north side of the bay commands
one of the grandest views of the Coolin. The anchorage is perfect in all
winds at Loch Harport, the eastern arm of the bay. At the head of the
loch, at Carabost, is a distillery, where is still manufactured, as well
as ever, the "fine spirit" known to fame as the "Tallisker." This, and a
woollen factory at Portree, where tweeds of the best description are made,
are the only manufactories in Skye. In this loch, at Port-na-Culaidh,
below Ulinish, we anchored for the third time. As we sailed in, we passed
the island of Wiay, the best place for crowberries I ever saw. Near its
east end is a cave in a tall cliff, round the mouth of which hovered a
snowy cloud of sea-gulls. Further in, and connected with the main shore at
low-water, is the boldly picturesque Orosay, called also the Green Island,
the slope from its beetling top being carpeted with exquisite verdure.
Fronting the cliff is a cathedral-like rock, in which was a fine arch, now
broken, and not far from it is the Uamh Bhinn, or melodious cave, which
has a fine, ringing echo. Boswell says he couldn't hear it, and thought it
a myth. I have a tolerable ear, and have heard it a good many times.

Next day we sailed from
Bracadale to Soay. It was the lightest breeze, but the loveliest day of
all our voyage. The sea was all smiles—

"Glittering like a field of
diamonds,
With the multitudinous sparkle,
And the countless laughing ripple
Sung of old by Bard of Hellas."

As we passed the point of
Tallisker we were aware of a peculiar odour coming across the sea, to me
at least not unpleasant. Looking westward, where the outlines of North and
South Uist rose above the hazy horizon, we could see a streak of
bluish-white smoke all along the shore. It was the smoke of burning kelp,
and the scent of it came over the Minch to us, a distance of some thirty
miles. Though not exactly equal to

"Sabaean odours from the
spicy shore
Of Arabie the blest,"

it recalled vague pleasant
associations of sunny days, when kelp used to be made on the shores of
Loch Dunvegan.

Like Uig and a few other
places in Skye, Tallisker is unique—the very picture of a Happy Valley,
sequestered from all the world, the home of innocence and peace. It is a
flat green vale, facing a small horseshoe bay girt with high rocks, mixed
with grassy spots, where sheep feed eagerly in places that seem
inaccessible. Behind the house towers the remarkable basaltic hill of
Brismheall, and on the east of the bay is the striking-looking rock called
the Fuller's Stack, a mass of disintegrated trap filled with lumps of
pretty zoolite, which abounds in the neighbouring rocks and shore. Past
this attractive spot we softly glided; and as our motion was slow enough
to admit of our using the yawl, two of us got out in it to make some
exploration of the shores, which are pierced with numberless caves. It is
no exaggeration to say that for several miles there appears to be one on
an average at every five hundred yards. We went into a few. One we found
filled with cormorants, looking like gargoyles, or unblest spirits, as
they clung to the high sides and arches of the cave, and swayed about
their snaky necks. At the sound of a gun, what a flapping of wings and a
plopping into the deep-green water was there ! And then how strongly they
swam out to sea, turning their vigilant eyes in all directions as they
rose on the crest of the tide. Of other birds there was no lack. The
rock-pigeons had caves of their own, and the red-legged oyster-catchers
went piping from rock to rock. Gulls, white and grey, floated lightly on
the wave, or screamed aloft; and terns flirted up and down, creaking
incessantly. To these, life seems rather a gay affair; and the gulls in
particular have all the graceful repose of the best society, sitting on
the waves like ladies at an evening party. Very different is the bustling
and energetic gannet, which hurries aloft on impatient wing as if bent on
business, then descends like a shot to accomplish a rapid transaction in
shares, having acquired which he flaps himself up, and is off in search of
a new speculation in fish. Ever and anon there comes across the water,
like a voice of warning, the plaintive tremulous note of the diver,
calling to its little one not to venture too far, as they go paddling
together on the great deep.

From Tallisker to Loch
Eynort the coast is of the same bold and cliffy character as before. Loch
Eynort is a pretty "back-of-beyond" place. It was once a centre of some
population, and the site of a church, but is now inhabited by only two or
three families. In the Scottish Antiquarian Museum is a beautiful old
font, made of some of the hard black crystalliferous rock of the Coolin,
which was carried off from the ruins of an old chapel here. A boat's crew
from South Uist, who were detained in the loch, had made a note of it, and
thought it would be a precious gift to bring to their chapel at Iochdar.
They accordingly walked off with it under cloud of right, and, as if to
mark heavenly approval of their pious zeal, the wind, which had been right
against them for a week, veered round to the east as soon as the sacred
stone touched the keel, and carried them rapidly and safely to Benbecula!
So the worthy old priest at Iochdar told me, not without a touch of quiet
humour, whom I found in his primitive dwelling, dressed in a suit of green
tartan, communicating instruction in Virgil to a tow-headed eager-looking
Presbyterian youth. In the Roman Catholic chapel there the font did duty
for some years, till the serviceable intervention of Mr. W. F. Skene got
it transported to Edinburgh. There is an inscription on it in large
characters, which has not yet been deciphered, being greatly worn.

From Eynort to Loch Breatal
is again a line of cliffs, and from Rhundunan to Scavaig the shore is
still rocky, but without high cliffs. Off this coast lies the populous
little island of Soay, where we anchored in our fifth night round Skye.
Next day was devoted to Coiruisg, on the next we visited the Spar Cave,
and in the afternoon we ran with a spanking breeze, in one hour, across to
Cannay. From Cannay we sailed to Ulva, thence to Staffa, and thence to
Bunessan in Mull. Next morning, our last day, we warmed our piety among
the ruins of Iona, sailed round the south of Mull, admiring its fine
scenery, and in the afternoon scudded, with two reefs in the mainsail,
into the shelter of the bay of Oban.

After so much about the
rocks and hills of Skye, it may be asked whether one has nothing to say
about the people? Dr. Johnson, when asked at Auchinleck how he liked the
Highlands, said testily, "Who can like the Highlands? I love the people
better than the country." For my part, I like both so well that I can say
nothing ill about either. Of the character of the people I can hardly be
expected to speak, impartially, being one of them myself. Of the condition
of some of them, I may have a few words to say, though not now. From some
things I have said, it may seem that I take the sentimental view of the
subject, and object, among other things, to the introduction of
sheep-farming. By no means. I think there has been and is much
exaggeration of the state of matters, and that a great part of Skye is
chiefly fitted for sheep. But for all that, it must still be admitted that
a man is better than a sheep, and that where men are produced they ought
to have at least as much consideration as the four-footed creatures, and
their young ones at any rate ought to have plenty of milk. A lamb is an
interesting creature, but a pretty child is more so (and there are no ugly
children in Skye), and its parents should have the chance of feeding it
well. This, I am sorry to say, some of them have not the opportunity of
doing at present, on one or two of the big sheep-farms of Skye.

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